Congratulations on making it through the first 10-plus percent of the NBA regular season. This may not seem like an important milestone, but in all actuality, it is. You are now afforded the license to purchase stock in some of the biggest surprises.

Preseason expectations dictate interpretation of these standouts. Not all of the notable shocks are teams with winning records and massive point differentials. Sub-.500 squads more watchable or just flat-out better than projected are worthy of feel-good nods, too

For all the inevitable "But where's Team X?" inquiries, let's get this out of the way: Every squad was put under review. Exclusions aren't implied hot takes; they're by design. Certain teams deserve persisting skepticism, while others shouldn't count as surprises.

Elaborate arguments will be laid out for the Minnesota Timberwolves and Miami Heat. I'm not quite sold. Karl-Anthony Towns is a celestial being, but the Timberwolves have a middling point differential against a less-than-taxing schedule. Andrew Wiggins' recent surge makes me uncomfortable.

The Heat need a little more time to marinate. Their half-court offense is suspect, they've turned in a few duds on the road, and their success hinges on an uncomfortable amount of breakouts (Bam Adebayo) and inexperienced contributors (Tyler Herro, Kendrick Nunn). Opponents are also shooting just 31 percent against them on wide-open threes, which they give up more frequently than any other team.

Please don't get hung up on the absence of contenders who are supposed to be contenders. Ditto for plucky upstarts.

The Los Angeles Lakers and Utah Jazz are really good. That is not breaking news. The Atlanta Hawks are as entertaining as expected, if not slightly more so given Trae Young's offensive onslaught without John Collins or a wealth of proven shot-makers around him. Talk to me about the Indiana Pacers in a month.

Check your caution at the door. The rest of these pleasant surprises are worth stanning for.

Charlotte Hornets

The Charlotte Hornets get here by virtue of surprising watchability and little else.

Endorsing their fringe-playoff record is tough. They have beaten just one team with a .500 record or better (Indiana Pacers) and aren't blowing anyone out of the water. Their four wins have come by an average of four points, and only two of their six losses have come by fewer than 15 points. They are 27th in net rating.

Still, Charlotte is fun and not necessarily bad. At the very least, it is the fun kind of bad.

Head coach James Borrego isn't afraid to get weird with his lineups. The Hornets force a ton of turnovers. They get off to the races after defensive rebounds. They have a more efficient half-court offense than the Denver Nuggets and Golden State Warriors. They're getting meaningful minutes from key prospects.

Will PJ Washington receive more Rookie of the Year votes than RJ Barrett? How many off-the-dribble threes is Devonte' Graham going to hit? Why aren't we talking more about Miles Bridges? Is Cody Martin going to pass and rebound and defend and smash stuff at the rim like this forever?

Add the Hornets to your League Pass rotation if you haven't already. They're a not-so-guilty pleasure to watch.

Cleveland Cavaliers

The Cleveland Cavaliers are more watchable than expected. That's for sure.

They might be better than anyone imagined, too.

Cleveland has pieced together a respectable defense without the personnel to match. Tristan Thompson is currently having the best season of his career. He's even shooting 64.1 percent on hook shots. Kevin Love's cold streak is not forever, and he has the runway to get, like, 15 to 20 percent better than he's shown in his best games.

Collin Sexton's three-point shot is for real. Cedi Osman might be a good defender. Darius Garland is getting more decisive off the ball. I'm going to step out on a limb and say he ends up being at least an average(ish) NBA defender.

Kudos to head coach John Beilein for steering into three-guard combinations. His lineups have boosted the Cavs' fun factor in the absence of playing at blinding speed or living in transition.

And kudos to Cleveland's starting five in general. They're outscoring opponents by 14.2 points per 100 possessions in an already-pretty-sizable sample size.

Much like the Charlotte Hornets, the Cavaliers probably aren't going to stick inside the Eastern Conference's playoff picture. They're more of a blow-up candidate, and their half-court offense will remain strained by inexperience unless Love enters god mode.

But also like the Hornets, the Cavaliers aren't supposed to be such a digestible product. Their rebuild has not been painted in the same exciting light as that of the Atlanta Hawks or Memphis Grizzlies. Their outlook still doesn't warrant that kind of treatment.

In the immediate term, though, the Cavs are eminently fun and competent.

Dallas Mavericks

Singling out the Dallas Mavericks was not a given. Some people missed on them (me), but they turned into a popular playoff pick by summer's end. Their start to the season is not entirely out of nowhere.

At the same time, their level of success thus far is hardly predictable.

Luka Doncic has somehow exceeded his expected transcendence. He's almost averaging a triple-double, hitting nearly 35 percent of his step-back threes and shooting 55.6 percent on floaters. Dallas is getting hammered when he plays with Kristaps Porzingis but steamrolling opponents in the minutes he spends without him.

That last bit is a feather in the Mavericks' cap for now. The Doncic-Porzingis pairing will improve. The latter is more of a bystander in the interim. Dallas is setting him up by milking Doncic's synergy with Maxi Kleber and Dwight Powell. He will eventually shoot better than 31.8 percent on twos and 25.0 percent on threes off Luka's passes and be able to headline lineups on his own.

Hard-knock returns on the Doncic-Porzingis duo should be a harbinger of doom. They're not. The Mavericks are again doing work on the margins.

Their bench has the league's best point differential per 100 possessions. Dorian Finney-Smith and Delon Wright are making plays at the rim. Jalen Brunson is hot and cold, but he's been more hot over the past week and is shooting better than 53 percent on his drives. Kleber is hitting a ton of threes.

Dallas' defense is suspect but can get by. Porzingis has done a nice job protecting the rim, and the Mavericks limit corner-three attempts. They offset a substandard defense with a league-best offense.

A relatively soft schedule is the larger concern. Dallas has faced just three teams .500 or better, against which it's 1-2. It's also just 2-3 at home. That's fine. The Mavericks will play better on their own turf, and they were ultra-competitive in losses to the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics.

Boston Celtics

No one was counting on the Celtics to be a pushover, and their opening schedule has been favorable. Their start is still ridiculous.

Boston is a league-best 8-1 with the top net rating by a mile. The loss to the Philadelphia 76ers at the beginning of the season wasn't pretty, but the Celtics have since racked up victories against the Dallas Mavericks, Milwaukee Bucks and Toronto Raptors.

Kemba Walker is a breath of fresh air for the offense. Boston has better spacing around him than what he enjoyed in Charlotte, and he's annihilating defenses out of the pick-and-roll accordingly. He's shooting 43.7 percent from deep on a career-high three-point-attempt rate, including 46.4 percent on catch-and-fire treys and 42.4 percent on off-the-dribble triples.

Jaylen Brown looks like a different player. He's dishing out more assists on his drives, taking more of his shots at the rim and nearly getting to the foul line at a career-high clip. Another development: He's shooting better than 77 percent at the charity stripe after hitting just 65.8 percent of his free-throw attempts over his first three seasons.

Marcus Smart's three-point touch must no longer be taken with a grain of salt. He's third on the Celtics in outside attempts per 36 minutes, behind only Walker and the sparingly used Carsen Edwards, and shooting 37.3 percent from beyond the arc.

Gordon Hayward looked pretty much all the way back before suffering a fractured left hand. That is both great and concerning. Boston will need more out of Jayson Tatum immediately. He is making his threes but has a sub-50 true shooting percentage overall.

Daniel Theis and Robert Williams III have given the Celtics some solid minutes up front. The defense might still be a mirage. Boston is third in points allowed per 100 possessions on half-court plays, which feels unsustainable, and opponents aren't shooting so hot on wide-open three-pointers.

Any regression on the less-glamorous end is navigable if the offense holds. It should. And who knows, maybe the Celtics' defensive scheme pans out. They limit looks at the rim, force a good amount of turnovers, could start fouling less and, above all, have Marcus Smart.

Phoenix Suns

Nobody expected the Phoenix Suns to be here.

Better than last season? For sure. A fringe playoff team? Maybe.

Decidedly over .500? After playing out one of the league's five hardest schedules? With a top-four net rating? And a top-three offense? And a top-12 defense? Absolutely, positively not.

Suns skeptics aren't so much eating crow as boarding the same boat as the vast majority. Everyone is getting bulldozed by the moment. Whiffing on Phoenix is the status quo. Suns fans are included in that monopoly, too. Yours truly gave them a "C" on their offseason report card, and that was met, for the most part, by shrugs and lukewarm endorsements from Phoenix optimists.

This isn't just a matter of the Suns rising above expectations. They're obliterating them. And you know what? It is probably time to accept this as the norm—or something close to it.

Nothing about Phoenix's hot start stands out as fraudulent because no one is playing light years above their head. Aron Baynes is shooting 50 percent on a massive uptick in three-point volume. Kelly Oubre Jr. is hitting an uncharacteristically high percentage of his pull-up jumpers. That's about the extent of potential miracles in Phoenix.

Everything else is believable, if not bankable.

Devin Booker is excelling in a more manageable role. He's more efficient on offense and trying harder on defense now that he's surrounded by NBA players. Go figure. His passes have more meaning than ever. Among the 286 players averaging at least 15 minutes per game, he's third in adjusted assist-to-pass ratio—the percentage of a player's passes that are assists, hockey assists or feeds that result in free throws. Only James Harden and Kawhi Leonard are in front of him.

Ricky Rubio won't shoot 40 percent from three forever. We've seen this movie before. But his defense has aged nicely, and he's a breath of fresh game-managing air on offense.

Tyler Johnson might be shooting slightly above his peak. Dario Saric has room to improve on offense. Mikal Bridges has disappointed. The Suns' defensive ranking is high, but they're not doing anything out of this world. They've effectively crashed the glass, forced turnovers, pressured the ball and limited gimme three-point attempts.

It all balances out. As SB Nation's Mike Prada wrote: "They've been bolstered not by top-level talent, but instead by the pristine positioning, floor spacing, and toughness from a crew of competent NBA role players. Or, as [Phoenix general manager James] Jones put it, they've raised their floor."

Maybe Deandre Ayton's inevitable return from suspension will compromise the Suns' standing. Maybe they fall out of Western Conference playoff contention. Maybe something else goes horribly wrong. Either way, they're better—much better—than the consensus thought.

Toronto Raptors

Losing Kawhi Leonard (and Danny Green) was never supposed to cripple the Raptors so long as they stayed together. They always profiled as an Eastern Conference playoff irritant.

What we're seeing now is something more.

Pascal Siakam is doing everything. He is scoring off the dribble, jump-starting pick-and-rolls, initiating the offense from the post, flying around on defense—everything. Earning the first-ever consecutive Most Improved Player nods is not out of the question.

Kyle Lowry was averaging 21.8 points and 6.5 assists on what would be a career-best true shooting percentage before fracturing his left thumb. OG Anunoby was raining threes, attacking close-outs and defending well before getting poked in the eye against the Los Angeles Clippers. Serge Ibaka was Serge Ibaka before his right ankle injury.

All these mounting absences have not slowed the Raptors. Fred VanVleet continues to vacillate between man and myth. Toronto is getting useful minutes from Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and Matt Thomas. Marc Gasol has shown more of a continuous pulse over the past few games. Norman Powell's Jekyll-Jekyll-Hyde-Jekyll-Hyde-Hyde-Jekyll act is maddening but manageable.

Some aspects of the Raptors' start feel fluky.

They're second in three-point accuracy, a tenuous standing at best. (FYI: The Detroit Pistons are first.) They're not winning the minutes Lowry has played without Siakam. Only the Miami Heat give up wide-open threes more frequently, and opponents should shoot slightly better than 36.4 percent on them in time. Defensive rebounding is a problem.

Attributing this feel-good start to luck is still an overstep. The Raptors have faced the sixth-hardest schedule to date yet own a top-five point differential per 100 possessions. They nearly won both ends of a back-to-back against the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers despite missing Lowry, Ibaka and, for most of the latter game, Anunoby.

Toronto deserves to be taken seriously—not just as a foregone postseason conclusion, but as a team with a make-it-out-of-the-East ceiling.

Unless otherwise noted, stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference or Cleaning the Glass and are accurate entering games on Wednesday. Salary and cap-hold information via Basketball Insiders, RealGM and Spotrac.

Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@danfavale) and listen to his Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by B/R's Andrew Bailey.